


Bagpipe

by Sheffield



Category: The Sentinel, The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:33:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was exactly ten days nine hours and forty seven minutes since we'd shot Ellison full of tranquillisers from the rooftop three streets away and disappeared him. His little roomie didn't look too hot, to be honest, but that could have had something to do with it being four in the morning when I hammered on his door like death come a calling…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bagpipe

"Have you ever seen the film 'The Vanishing'?" I said, smiling.

It was exactly ten days nine hours and forty seven minutes since we'd shot Ellison full of tranquillisers from the rooftop three streets away and disappeared him. His little roomie didn't look too hot, to be honest, but that could have had something to do with it being four in the morning when I hammered on his door like death come a calling…

"Where's Jim? What have you done with him?"

Honestly. Who writes his dialogue? I gave him my most sinister smirk.

"No, no, no: that's not how it goes. I’m the bad guy in this story. Like the bad guy in the movie, I know where your friend is, what happened to him. And you don't."

He had one of those transparently honest faces, where every stray thought passes behind the eyes. He was kind of cute, in that big-eyed, innocent, idiotic, sort of way. I felt like something feral; an otter or a ferret maybe, caught in the act of mesmerising a baby bird.

"If you want to find out what happened to him, the only way is to let what happened to him, happen to you. I give you this, you drink it, and when you wake up again, you'll know."

But it didn’t faze him. He made a noise somewhere between a snort of derision and a sob.

"Oh yeah? And in the European version I wake up in a coffin - no thanks."

He had a gun in one hand and a mobile phone in the other and the door was still on its chain. Maybe he was smarter than he looked. But then, he was holding that gun way too close to the gap - I struck like a snake, took the gun away from him, and then grinned when he tried to slam the door shut on my hand.

"Maybe it's the remake, and your girlfriend will rescue you in the last reel." I said, keeping up the smile. When he'd given me this assignment CM had been really keen on this part, actually thought the kid would be dumb enough to tranq. himself. Not infallible, then, I was pleased to see.

Slamming a door shut on my hand just pisses me off, frankly; it's an expensive piece of equipment. I shouldered the door open and chased him. Stupid bastard, all he was doing was making me mad. He ran towards the balcony doors. He'd pressed speed dial on his phone and was yelling for help to someone called Simon by the time I got him down and stabbed the needle into his thigh. He gave it up quite sweetly and I stood looking at his unconscious body a moment before I thoughtfully turned off the phone. Let Simon wonder a while longer.

***

Field test, he said.

I didn't pick up till too late that CM hadn't said who he was testing. But what the hell. Take as many men as you need. Use what resources you like. Within reason. Her name is Jane. Take her where she wants to go, give her whatever she wants, and then bring her back.

I turned it around in my head, looking for the trap. What is she likely to want, I said, thinking money, information, revenge, the usual motivators. Him, CM said, throwing me a passport photograph. Dark haired pale eyed caucasian, quite ordinary, I catalogued, bored. Ken doll. Or maybe him, he said, throwing me another. Pretty boy, long hair, big eyes. Bambi. OK, I said, like I had a choice. What's her name? Jane what?

Doe, he said.

Ah.

So she was Jane, and then, when we got to know her, the boys started calling her Crazy Jane and then, after she killed the Fitz boy for saying it, just CJ, till we'd almost forgotten where it came from.

But it wasn't the dark haired man she'd wanted. Ellison, Ken doll's name was, and he was good. Really very good, and he seemed to know where she was as if they were joined at the hip. And he was Cop, so every time we got close there were uniforms everywhere and Bambi disappeared behind uniform and muscle. In the end, I had the boys grab Ken doll and stash him out of the way - fifty miles away, in a straitjacket in a padded soundproof room in a consortium lab, where I could keep my eye on him with the ever present cameras. So we could start playing head games with little Bambi Blair.

***

"He smells bad."

He was still so doped up he couldn't stand upright but we'd driven all night to get him there, and we'd had to stop and play CM’s little game first.

A ‘thank you’ would have been nice.

"Take him to the showers, strip him down and scrub him," I ordered, smiling. So while CJ waited and did her crazy stuff - it was tea, today; 78 different brands so far - and the boys took Bambi off for his shower, I sneaked a look at our Ken doll.

For the last few days he'd been sitting there not fighting the restraints, not doing anything at all that I could see. But now... he was howling like someone demented and doing his best to dislocate his shoulder to get out of the straitjacket by running into the wall. I phoned the team.

"Anyone actually on watch down there?"

"Er, yes sir... sorry sir."

"Go down to the cell and tranquillise the bastard. And then make sure there's someone awake, at the screen, actually looking at it, at all times."

I was betting they’d amused themselves telling him what was happening to little Bambi. I had fifteen men, nine here, six with Ken doll, none of them people I'd worked with before. I wondered if they were all as competent. Time for a little on the job training?

So I went down to the shower room and, sure enough, there were two of them politely turning their backs while Bambi soaped himself up, all nice and friendly, and not only was he not bound and not gagged but he was holding a fucking would you believe it conversation with them, and it's "yes, but, Blair..." and suddenly I'm running a fucking sewing circle here.

I spoke into the intercom and they looked round guiltily because, dammit, they were so busy chatting they hadn't even heard me come in.

"Gentlemen, would you join us in the shower room please?"

And I smiled at them, quite neutrally, while the others came, and little Bambi was starting to look a bit uncomfortable now as I fixed him with the bug-on-a-pin glare, but he carried on soaping himself up and then rinsed off and then, when his furtive glance around didn't spot any towels, he leaned forward and started to wash his hair, figuring it's warmer in the water and, hell, bright enough to know that, whatever was coming, it wasn't going to be good, at least not for him.

I gestured towards him.

"What's going on here, please?"

The two who were in charge, Meeks and Davis, looked furtively at each other, and then Davis, by some telepathic process, was elected leader.

"Just having him take a shower, like you told us."

"I see. And what - precisely - did you hear me tell you to do?"

"Take him down to the shower room, strip him, and scrub him down..."

"And you're quite happy with how it's going?"

"Well, he's co-operating, the situation is contained; I really don't see a problem."

Like lightning I clubbed Meeks to the ground with the solid arm and grabbed little Bambi's wrist in the other. I jerked, and he whiplashed out of the shower and towards the door, while I put Davis down with a kick to the knee.

"That really IS the problem," I said, not even breathing hard, "because if you don't follow basic procedure you aren't going to be ready when the 'problem' you haven't seen rears up and bites you on the ass. You haven't got the subject contained, you certainly haven't got him under control, and you haven't even begun the process of teaching him his place in the scheme of things."

I jerked on his wrist again and he was off balance enough that I could get him down on the ground without too much effort so I rolled him onto his face and twisted a plastic tie round his wrists.

"What you do in handling a subject doesn't depend on his co-operation for fuck's sake! He doesn't get a vote, his opinions don't matter, he doesn't have any rights here."

These guys had obviously never done time as muscle on a chicken ranch - you don't make friends with the stock. I remembered the man who taught me that, and the body of the boy he taught it on.

"Let's be quite clear. CJ gets to do whatever she wants with him - she asks you to castrate him, fuck him, paint him blue or dress him as tinker bell and you say 'yes ma'am' and just do it. And when he's locked down in his cell, you’re OK unless you’re specifically delegated to keep watch. But when he's not with CJ and not in his cell, he's your responsibility. You keep him contained at all times. You pass him from one set of bindings to another, so that if he turns into a ninja warrior, or fucking superman breaks in to rescue him, the result is the same. Where's the gag?"

Meeks had the ball gag in his pocket. I bent down and said softly "Open your mouth."

"I thought none of this depended on my co-operation," Bambi sneered.

Not as smart as he looked after all. I put the pointed toe of my hand-stitched leather boot into his crotch and just nudged him gently. I was counting seconds in my head. I looked up at my men. It was, after all, a training session for them too.

"The instruction you give him is ‘assume the position’ and, on hearing that command, he will lie down on his face like this, forehead to the floor, wrists crossed behind his back, ankles crossed. You secure his wrists and then he will open his mouth for the gag. You give him five seconds to comply..."

I kicked.

Hard.

He howled in pain and I put the gag in and buckled it, tight, at the back of his head.

"And none of this depends on his co-operation. The only reason you ask him to assume the position is to give him the option of being restrained without pain, as opposed to the hard way."

I patted him gently on the butt.

"You with the programme now, Bambi?"

He didn’t dare not to nod acquiescence.

"Now get him up."

Meeks and Davis exchanged meaningful glances as they hauled him upright and I wondered which of them was going to be the one.

Davis said, "I see what you mean, but it’s major overkill -" and I shot him quietly in the back of the head.

"Anyone else have a problem with their instructions?" I said gently into the silence. Apparently no-one did.

"And aw look - Bambi’s all covered in blood and brains, and after he just showered, too. Meeks, why don’t you and Harris scrub him down for me?"

Meeks was a quick learner. Bambi was hauled back into the shower and strung up like a starfish with straps on wrists and ankles and Meeks was scrubbing him down with the long-handled scrubbing brush thoughtfully provided by the consortium for that very purpose before you could say "sir, yes sir." Bambi’s big doe-eyes looked mournfully at me over the gag and I laughed. This was shaping up to be a lot of fun.

***

So. CJ got what she wanted. He was trembling when we took him back to her, not just with cold but with fear, real fear. Well, hell, last time they’d met she’d killed him, I’d done that much research. I sat him down where she said and he looked up at me - just a fleeting glance - and it was as if he was assessing whether I could protect him from her. Wow. It poured over me like melted chocolate, right down to my toes. And then I grinned at him, unbuckled the gag and put it down on the table, and said "ring the bell when you’re done and one of us will come back and collect him." And I left him to her.

When she rang the bell a couple of hours later I was curious enough to go collect him myself but, apart from a couple of bruises on his jaw, he looked to be in pretty good shape. She’d untied him at some point but hadn’t given him any clothes so he was huddled naked on one of the sofas, arms wrapped around his knees, making himself look small. But CJ was shaking in fury.

"Take him away," she said to me, like I was her servant or something, "and bring him back when he’s ready to help me."

I stood over him till I had his attention and then stepped back half a pace.

"Assume the position," I said softly. He looked up at me for a beat and then, without any fuss, got himself down on the floor and crossed his wrists behind his back. I tied him, gagged him, helped him up and then, as an afterthought, pulled a hood over his head. I still had Meeks and the others to train and it would be easier to get them to think of him as a "subject" and not as a person if he wasn’t making those goo goo eyes at them all the time.

I took him back to the cell we’d got prepared for him and made him go through the rigmarole of lying down on his face again for me to untie his wrists, pull off the hood and the gag. And then I was out of the room and the door locked behind me before he could scramble to his feet.

There was nothing in the cell, of course, not even a pallet to sleep on. Four bare walls and a nice cold concrete floor. He huddled up in a corner, wrapped his arms around his knees again, trying to conserve any body heat he had left. I looked at the monitors thoughtfully. Keep the lights on all the time, or keep him in darkness? But to ask the question was to answer it, of course. Unpredictable brutality, that was always the key. Nothing so routine that he could rely on. I gave him a couple of minutes of light to get used to his circumstances, and then plunged him into darkness.

***

I caught Harris on his way to feed Bambi after we’d all had lunch. The consortium didn’t do us badly, you had to admit, for institutional food. There had been a goulash, and some kind of fruit thing, and quite decent coffee, and Harris had a tray all nicely made up and was heading for Bambi’s cell before I had really thought it through.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing?" I asked him mildly.

"Just feeding and watering the prisoner," he said submissively. Ah yes, he’d been well spattered with Davis’ brains in yesterday’s little learning experience.

I held up a hand and he froze obediently. I went back into the kitchen and started searching under the counters, throwing dishes and utensils on the floor till I found what I was looking for. A nice stainless steel bowl, about a quart capacity. Some kind of mixing bowl, presumably, although it had that nice dog bowl quality I was looking for. I tipped Bambi’s meal into it, an item at a time. Goulash. Fruit. Biscuits. Coffee. Gave it a bit of a stir till it achieved sludge, but not so much that it wasn’t clear it had once been, or at least been meant as, food.

"There," I said, handing Harris a tray on which stood my dog bowl of slush. "Now you can feed Bambi. Don’t talk to him."

He looked at me and, without a word, turned to Bambi’s cell. He unlocked it, put the bowl down on the floor, and walked out. I turned on the lights and watched on the monitors. Bambi looked into the bowl cautiously and gave it a bit of an experimental stir with one finger, and then wrinkled up his nose in disgust. He’d have to be a lot hungrier before he tackled something that looked so foul.

Of course, he was going to get a lot hungrier before we’d done with him.

***

I left him in the dark for the rest of that day and night, keeping a careful eye on him on the infra red, or at least making sure that my trainees kept careful eyes on him while I slept, checked in with Ken Doll, checked out CJ.

She looked rough, almost as rough as little Bambi.

"Why won’t he help me?" she said plaintively.

"He’ll help you," I said positively. "Whatever you want him to do, he’ll do it. It’ll just take a while to break him in. Don’t worry about it. We’re good at our jobs. You want him broken, we’ll break him."

"No!" she wailed, hurling a lamp across the room. I suppressed the urge to punch out her lights and waited patiently. "You mustn’t hurt him! Bring him to me."

Fine. Whatever. I fetched him myself, properly restrained, hooded and gagged of course, and she fell on him like he was her long lost son, flinging her arms around him and weeping on his neck.

"Get me some blankets - he’s freezing!"

I breathed into the irritation and let nothing show, and in a couple of minutes she had him sitting on the sofa wrapped up in blankets and was feeding him one of the 78 brands of tea.

Then she looked up at me as though all this was my fault.

"Go away." she said. I smiled. And went.

***

"What’s that?" he asked as I came into the cell. Ah yes, I’d never forbidden him to speak to me, had I?

"It’s a hurdle," I said impassively, putting it down in the centre of the floor. There ought to have been slots in the floor to fasten it down, but I figured Bambi wasn’t going to give me any trouble. I stood back, let him see it. It was its very ordinariness that was so sinister. Two A-frames, linked together at the top of the As and ends of the cross-pieces. If I brought in another one, and some planks to rest on them, we would have a picnic table.

"Next time you see CJ you’re going to co-operate with her. Or else we have a new rule. Any time you’re in here you get tied to the hurdle. Ankles here, wrists here."

He looked at it. The restraints were obvious, when you looked. But I pointed them out anyway. He’d be ankles wide apart, facing the hurdle, then bent forward so the top of the hurdle was against the waist, head down and wrists bound to the other side of the base. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would stretch his muscles painfully, and make it surprisingly hard to breathe, and of course he’d be looking at the floor with his bare butt sticking up in the air for all to see, horribly, uniquely, vulnerable.

"Please," he said quietly, "please listen to me. She wants me to do something I can’t do. I’m trying to co-operate, really I am. You think I want this?"

I looked at him and gave him my blankest stare.

"I don’t care. My job is to make her happy. What she wants is you, co-operative. She tells me you aren’t co-operating. So co-operate."

"She’s insane!"

"And?"

***

We fell, all of us, into a kind of a routine. CJ would send for Bambi and keep him an hour, a minute, an afternoon. One time she kept him overnight, had us bring them both supper like they were on a date or something. As far as consortium jobs go, it was a good gig. Indoors, warm, well fed, nobody shooting at us...

But I never was any good at routine.

I looked in on him. We had kept the lights on him all the time since the hurdle. And, since he wasn’t with CJ or in transit, he was of course strapped to the hurdle, ass in the air. He hadn’t had any respite - or sleep, or food - for the best part of a week. I had taken to putting down a separate metal bowl of water and making him drink that - before I untied his hands, of course - as a preliminary to strapping him to the hurdle. He was a mess.

"Feeling any more co-operative, Bambi?" I said gently. He didn’t bother looking up at me, concentrating on getting as much air into his lungs as he could.

"Fuck you."

I was so surprised I laughed out loud before I even thought about it. But I patted his butt and left him alone. And plunged him into darkness.

***

"You should try something new," I suggested mildly.

"What? I’ve tried everything."

"Maybe he isn’t lying. Maybe he can’t do for you what he does for Ken doll. Ellison. But you haven’t questioned Ellison."

She looked up and the glint in her eyes was that mad glint I recognised, that called to me. She was as crazy as I … used to be.

"Get me a car."

***

Meeks and Harris went with her. I called the ones with Ken doll and gave them detailed instructions. The others, I gave the night off.

When I put on the lights he looked up and I decided there and then that I didn’t want to use the hurdle. Too inflexible. I unstrapped him and said quietly, "Assume the position."

He had learned better than to resist. He lay on the ground, face down, and meekly crossed his wrists and ankles. I cuffed and gagged him and then lifted him to his feet and pulled the hood down over his face. I took him by the upper arm as usual and ushered him out of the cell. He tried to turn right, as usual, towards CJ’s room, and I smacked him sharply on the butt and turned him the way I wanted him to go, without saying a word.

When we came to my room I ushered him inside. He stood still on the threshold, a naked white statue with an ugly black ball instead of a head. I switched on the screens so I could watch Ken doll. He was bouncing around his cell like the screens were two way, or he knew what was going to go down, or he knew CJ was on her way. I grinned silently at him, wondering if he’d survive the night.

Then I turned to little Bambi. He stood still in the doorway, disoriented by the change of direction, by not having any hands on him. I smiled. He really was a pretty little thing. I pushed him forwards, till his knees were up against the foot of the bed, and then pushed him harder till he couldn’t keep his back straight any more and was bent forward over the end of the bed.

Finally - finally! - he got it, understood what was happening to him, and started to struggle a bit. But it was too late by then, of course. I had my knee in his back and my hand in his hair and I was wearing the artificial hand with the pointing finger. So it was that one I used, watching him jump at the sudden sharpness of the pain, watching his breathing change when I rooted around and found the prostate. And then I left the hand in there, without moving, watching with detached amusement the pink end of it protruding from his butt and then fastened to what’s left of my arm. I said gently, "That’s the worst of it over, Bambi. If you relax I won’t hurt you."

Well, what did you think I was going to do?

I was bored, and he was a sweet little piece, and I was certain sure that this must be what Ken doll kept him for and CJ had Ken doll strapped down now too and she was riding him, and I had little Bambi stretched out in front of me like a perfect white statue except for a blank black ball for a head and I was in him and riding him hard and it was good, so good, so good…

I would have taken off the hood, but for those goo goo eyes.

And then I picked him up and got him to his feet, and walked him back down to the cell, and made him assume the position, and took off the gag and the hood, as I got him up again and fastened the straps on his ankles he said desperately, softly, "It’s like playing the bagpipes…"

And I bent him over the hurdle and fastened his wrists in place and said "Did anyone give you permission to speak, Bambi?"

Then I had a good look to see if I’d done him any permanent damage, gave him a friendly slap on the butt. And then what he’d said caught up with me.

"What’s like playing the bagpipes?"

He was silent.

"You can answer."

"What you want me to do. Imagine she wants to learn the bagpipes. And I know how, even though I can’t do it myself."

"Why not?"

He cast around desperately for the next step in his metaphor. "I don’t have the equipment. I’m asthmatic, or I’ve lost a finger. And you want me to teach her to play, and I’ll teach her, I’m trying, god, I’m trying! But she won’t practice. Won’t pick up her instrument - threw it away. Hell, she dumped her instrument in South America a year ago, you’ve read the file! And you’re beating up on me because she still can’t play."

Interesting analogy, I thought. And closed the door behind me, and switched off the light.

***

I’m not, as a rule, a memo kind of a guy. But the idea came to me irresistibly and there was a computer in one of the offices that had a secure link and I had no problems laying it all out and emailing it in.

And then I waited.

It was a long time since I’d kept a pet. I thought about it, long and hard, thinking about the kind of life I was leading. So most of the time, he’d have to be tied up in the trunk of a car. Nothing inherently difficult about that. He had only been in training for a few days but he wouldn’t be hard to manage. I imagined having unrestricted use of that sweet mouth. Coming back to a motel room at the end of a hard day, I fantasised, I’d open up the trunk and let him out, get him up to the room, get him on his knees. Could I keep him naked and still get him into and out of motel rooms? You can do a lot of things, if you’re willing to put down anyone who gives you any problems.

And if I kept Bambi as a pet, well, there were all kinds of things I could teach him. The chicken ranch had done that much for me. Taught me some of the things that were possible. If you had no limits, and all the time in the world.

The medics came to me the same day. No-one answered my memo, but then CM isn’t hot on leaving a trail. The medics’ word was enough.

Getting CJ tranked was tough. She knew it was coming, wouldn’t drink the water or eat the food, but the consortium has everything. Guns that fire tranks instead of bullets are kind of fun. You really can shoot first and ask questions later. I could think of several… concentrate on the job at hand. I had them start prepping CJ for shipping about the time all the alarms went off. Ken doll was out, and headed this way.

There was a lot of running around and shouting. The exit strategy was simple enough. Kill everyone, blow the place up, and vanish. My team, bless their little hearts, didn’t understand how disposable they really were and when the clean up crew arrived, suddenly they started growing spines and there was shooting. I checked CJ was safely crated up and on her way and then whistled quietly to myself and went to get Bambi.

I unstrapped him from the hurdle, and then handed him a pair of khaki pants and a white tee. No underwear - no sense in spoiling him at this stage in his training. This was all going to be unsettling enough to his routine. He looked at the clothes like they were some inscrutable text written in a language he didn’t understand.

"Dress. Now! Then assume the position."

Implacable. Sinister. And just ever so slightly sexy. That was me. He fumbled with the pants and was flat on his face on the floor before he’d finished rolling down the tee. I had riot cuffs and the gag on him before he could take a breath and I hooded him as usual. The familiar darkness made him pliant and I had no trouble either with making him move as I directed or with spiriting him away, out to the car.

I strapped him in and drove off, leaving the chaos behind. I had three possible destinations in mind. My thoughts idled around the possibilities, later that night. I’d like to see him in a proper dungeon but there wasn’t one I could rely on using closer than Seattle. But micro management - I already controlled whether he had light or darkness, food or water. I’d like to control his breathing, too - leave the gag but take off the hood, watch those eyes as I pinched his nostrils shut. Or strip him, blindfold him so I could see his face, put him through his paces and then, no doubt, a nice beating before I fucked him senseless… I sighed luxuriantly. So many possibilities.

We hit the highway and I pulled over.

I pulled off the hood and undid his seatbelt. He blinked in the darkness, blinded by the meagre lights of the headlamps and the stars. I undid the central locking.

"Out, Bambi," I said implacably, "Ken doll is over that way, about half a mile. Run in a straight line, that way, and you can’t miss him. Or at least," I amended, recalling their respective files, "he can’t miss you."

He looked at me, completely at a loss.

"Run. Before I change my mind."

After all, keeping a pet wasn’t really a practical proposition, for someone in my line of work. Cancer Man would have his Sentinel genes to play with, after CJ had helpfully harvested them for us from Ellison. She was going to be very closely watched till she brought the pregnancy to term. And then she’d be disposable. Too unstable to be useful. It was all in the memo.

He looked at me, and the intelligence that the training had suppressed gradually suffused his expression again. He looked as if he was dying to say something. Hell, I was letting him loose, did he really think I was going to untie him and ungag him too?

He headed a couple of steps in more or less the direction I’d indicated. Ken doll was on his way, I needed to be somewhere else. But I couldn’t resist one last little head game.

"Bambi!"

He was already broken to my voice. Such a shame to have to release him back into the wild, half tamed. He stopped and turned around.

"I’ll be back for you."

He was so easy. The memory of the terror on his face kept me laughing as I drove off into the night.


End file.
